The PRovoke Media Podcast

China Inc‘s global PR challenges

Ogilvy PR China president Joe Yu and SVP Simon Webb join the PRovoke Media podcast to discuss how Chinese companies' international communications needs are changing amid heightened geopolitical tensions. The duo also explore the impact on China's goal of building stronger soft power, and the role that American agencies can play in the current environment. 

Podcast: ‘AI Will Have A Huge Influence On How We Engage With Journalists‘

In this conversation, Aarti Shah talks to Aaron Kwittken, who recently launched PRophet, an AI-driven, SaaS platform designed for and by PR professionals to test and re-test pitches before sending to the media. They talk about how AI will help PR professionals craft targeted pitches, whether AI will transform the PR agency business model, the future of the office, and the changed employee-employer dynamic. Kwittken — who is founder/CEO of PRophet and chairman, KWT Global — was also featured on PRovoke Media's Innovator 25 this year.

Topics: 

01:15: How AI can be used to pitch media 
04:20 How PRophet emerged from an internal competition 
07:08 AI will allow the PR workforce to spend more time on higher-quality work
11:39  Reducing 'grunt work' can help improve the industry's mental health crisis 
13:59 Aaron's take on the future of the office
16:58 DE&I priorities in the post-pandemic era 
21:40 Shifting employee-employer dynamics 
24:02 Thoughts on innovation 

PRovokeGlobal: Moving the needle on health equity

In a keynote conversation that featured GSK Consumer Health global corporate affairs SVP Dana Bolden and Walgreen Boots Alliance (WBA) chief communications officer Aaron Radelet, H+K New York EVP Avra Lorrimer examined the role that communicators are playing in closing health equity gaps, finding that their role has — in this respect at least — never been more important. 

PRovokeGlobal: Clorox‘s Jackson Jeyanayagam

The leap from communications to business leadership remains rare within major multinational corporations, but it is one that Jackson Jeyanayagam undertook when he became VP and general manager of Clorox's consumer business in 2019.

In conversation with PRovoke Media editor-in-chief Arun Sudhaman at the PRovokeGlobal Summit last week, Jeyanayagam talked about the lessons he has learned along the way, including the qualities communicators can bring to broader management roles within businesses, and the challenges they need to overcome if they are to make a similar shift.

Independents Teaming Up To Win Business

Jennifer Risi, Cheryl Overton and Alyssa Garnick — owners of The Sway Effect, Cheryl Overton Communications and Agean PR respectively — are part of a growing number of independents who are teaming up to win and service accounts that require more than individual small shops can handle on their own. They join Diana Marszalek on the PRovoke Media podcast to discuss the new network model, and how it’s helped them grow.

 

COP26, Climate & Corporate Communications

As COP26 gets underway, two leaders from strategic communications consultancy Fourtold, Omar Mockbil and Tatu Liimatainen, who head up the firm’s EU advocacy and EU public affairs businesses respectively, join Maja Pawinska Sims on the PRovoke Media podcast to talk about the regulatory and policy milestones around environment, climate and sustainability leading up to the summit, and what it might mean for public affairs and corporate communications consultants, and effective messaging around climate change.

3 Changes To Help Overcome The Mental Health Pandemic — And The Role Comms Can Play

This episode tackles mental health from the pharmaceutical new perspective with Robert Murphy, head of external communications at Otsuka America Pharmaceutical and Kelly Dencker, EVP, Director of healthcare at Coyne PR. We anchor the conversation in a piece that Otsuka published in Forbes' BrandVoice platform: These 3 Changes Can Help Us Overcome The Mental Health Pandemic by Jodi Helmer. In the conversation, we explore each three factors and dive more deeply into the the role that communications can play in each.

Murphy's views are his own and do not necessarily reflect Otsuka America Pharmaceutical. 

Topics covered: 
01:35 What is it like working at Otsuka America Pharmaceutical?
03:41 How communications can help improve  access to care
08:17 Why mental health community outreach requires a multi-layered approach 
11:21 The role comms plays in leveraging the power of digital technology
16:41 How to create a more compassionate culture around mental health
21:55 How the language we uses can shift acceptance of mental health

When CEOs + CCOs Clash, Is Leaving The Only Recourse?

In this episode of the PRovoke Media podcast, PRovoke Media's executive editor Aarti Shah talks to Gabriel Stricker who has been immersed in Silicon Valley for two decades with senior roles at Google, Twitter, Niantic, the Emerson Collective, and most recently at Color. They talk about how Stricker nearly took on the top communications job at Theranos — and the lessons he learned from that near miss. Drawing upon Stricker's experiences, they talk about what happens when CCOs and CEOs clash on values, ethics and purpose. The conversation happened on the backdrop of Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen's testimony before the Senate. 

 

Topics: 
01:30 Gabriel Stricker on almost working at Theranos 
03:50 The importance of having moral alignment with the leadership team
06:17 Is it possible to vet for character during the interview process? 
10:05 Is the gold rush mentality in tech normalizing people compromise their values for big payouts? 
13:34 Having a healthy internal culture and building harmful products aren't mutually exclusive
17:36 Should CCOs be chief conscience officers? 
28:43 The tricky economics of the agency world
36:33 Stricker's rule for vetting companies 

Podcast: Paul Dyer On Friction Fatigue

In this PRovoke Media podcast, Lippe Taylor CEO Paul Dyer discusses his new book Friction Fatigue, in which he challenges brands to accept the failures of advertising and start engaging consumers on their own terms.

 

Being Human In A Tech-Enabled World: Learning

Being Human in a Tech-Enabled World is a four-part video series from PRovoke Media in partnership with AxiCom on how different aspects of life and work – as humans and communicators – have changed since we were thrust into a virtual and hybrid world and how they might change again in the future, now the power of technology has been realised. This third episode features AxiCom’s Aaron Virola and Emily Denton, as well as executive leadership coach Michael “Coop” Cooper in conversation with PRovoke Media's EMEA editor, Maja Pawinska Sims. The panel discuss the reality of starting a job, and even a career, without meeting colleagues, and the challenges for employers of onboarding and mentoring team members, and maintaining agency culture and on-the-job learning and professional development in a remote or hybrid working model.